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12. A Project Plan in 1 Week

Finally, we were all set to do the pilot of elaborating a Project Plan in only 1 week. We brought in all the engineers and other specialists who are involved with a standard project and set out to elaborate a full Project Plan in single piece flow. And yes, we managed to do it!

This didn’t come as a surprise to us. The VSM had been clear enough and we had carefully prepared for the pilot. Succeeding in delivering this Project Plan in a week didn’t seem to be an accident: We had prepared for success. Still, it was of course extremely satisfying that it came true.

Prior to the pilot

Prior to the pilot we had invited all specialists -and also done a road show of different meetings, in order to explain the background to the pilot, the rationale for it, our expectations and the urgency to do it. These meetings happened to be emotional events, where many professionals raised their doubts and concerns. The main of these being that making project plans isn’t the only thing a specialist does. What about all the other activities to be executed? How could we ever expect an important professional to dedicate a full week for only one project? Did we actually know on how many different projects an expensive specialist should be working simultaneously? We patiently listened to these concerns and explained that the goal of the pilot was:

to learn if it would be possible to do a project plan in only one week

what would be needed to be dealt with if one wishes to deliver a project plan within one week.

Then we stressed that it was by no means certain that we would be able to deliver a project plan in only one week, especially given the fact that the Firm today takes more than 12 weeks to produce such a plan.

Also, we had made sure to meet with all layers of the management and to get their agreement and cooperation. We had asked them to personally invite the team members for the pilot to be present for the full week -and to arrange for substitution in other jobs-. Which they accepted to do. We arranged for lunches and lots of candy.

During the pilot

We started the pilot with an introduction by the President of the Firm at 08:30 on Monday morning. Followed by briefings by the Vice President for Operations and the Project Director. They all stressed the importance of the experiment: respectively for the economic future of the Firm, for securing labour and for the improvement of quality. All mentioned their personal interest in supporting this experiment. And promised to be back on Friday, in order to receive an approved version of the Project Plan.

Then we set out to present the agenda for the week and to establish the group rules. We presented the agenda, which had previously been mailed to all specialists:

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Morning

Introduction

Plenary team discussion

Team reading of the plan

Plenary peer review

Final edition

Clarification of the scope

Data research

Clarifying issues

Elaborating comments

Final reading of the project plan

Afternoon

Process flow design

Writing the final draft per specialism

Discussions w/ individual peers

Elaborating comments

Evaluation

First texts per specialism

Cont.

Editing of remarks

Elaborating comments

Signing ceremony

The team decided to be working from 09:00 to 16:00, allowing for time before and after to answer emails and to do some other minor tasks for other projects. We agreed with the team members that no one was to leave the room, even it their part of the job would have be completed.

Then we started working. We first made sure to have the scope clarified -and to have it sort of frozen-. Many design issues were opened, with the entire team at once. And these issues were then discussed, taking all different points of view into account. One of the engineers stood up and decided to draw the entire production line on a sheet on the wall.

This going through the entire scope felt a bit labour intensive first, but proved very effective in the end. After these meetings, which took till 14:30, all experts set out to write their part of the document. The next morning, the team decided to delay the plenary team discussion with one hour, to allow all team members to finish their part of the job. Then, at 10:00 in the morning, the document was put on a beamer, and the entire team read it together. All issues, doubts and questions were immediately clarified and sorted out. By the end of the morning, the document was 80% complete. The team members used the rest of the day to complete it. The next day, they did a second team review. After that, all specialists went after their peers to have their part of the document checked. On Thursday, all peers were invited together, to look at the entire document. We made sure that only new and general issues were discussed during this Plenary Peer Review. All specific issues were to be taken up by the specialists themselves. The meeting lasted 1 ½ hours and all issues were thoroughly discussed and resolved. Then, the peers were invited for lunch. After lunch, the remarks were all elaborated in the document. All issues but one were solved on Thursday afternoon. The last issue was dealt with on Friday morning. This involved a conference call with a supplier. When a solution was found, the Project Plan could be finalized and presented for signing.

Evaluation

During the evaluation, we concluded that YES, it is possible to write a complete Project Plan in only one week, as opposed to 12 weeks. Interestingly, we also concluded that 80% had already been done on Tuesday. However, for the 20% rest of the document, it had proved to be essential that all specialists had remained in the room and available to sort out different issues as they popped up. A critical factor for success had been the joint elaboration of the scope of the project on the first morning. This exercise had killed all discussions and avoided lots of rework afterwards. Although it had looked quite labour intensive at first, the total amount of hours spent on the Projects Plans, had been 35% lower than in the traditional way of elaborating these plans.

So, everyone was extremely satisfied. As promised, all the managers showed up on Friday afternoon for the signing session. The President of the Firm announced right there that from now on all Project Plans were to be done this way: In one week only. The next step was to elaborate Standardized Work Instructions and to schedule all 25 projects for the rest of the year.

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